Prodigy
by Zarah Lorelight
Summary: A character study of River Tam. This series deals with what happened to her while she was at the Academy. Uses quotes from River Tam Sessions and BDM, but I DO NOT own any of the quotes or creations of Joss Whedon. Rated T for morbid and violent themes.
1. I: The Iceberg

I. Session 1: _The Iceberg._

Simon Tam embraced his sister in the parking lot. The two siblings had dark hair and wore high class clothing. Simon twirled his fingers through River's long curls. She had a small smile on her face, as her round brown eyes looked over her brother's shoulder at the large building behind them. She would miss Simon, but not much else while she boarded at her new school.

Simon's mother and father had always taken a greater interest in Simon's academic endeavors than those of his sister. Although River possessed a greater intellect than her brother, she was eccentric and had a habit of unintentionally showing up her parents during social events. Her parents perceived her aptitude as arrogance and insolence, especially when she logically managed to explain her way out of her chores or silly pranks. Simon, on the other hand, followed his parents ardently. Simon was going places in society. They had Simon.

When his parents discovered The Academy--an Alliance-funded school for exceptionally talented individuals--they discovered the perfect way to take care of their daughter. River wanted to go to the school too: she herself had left The Academy's brochures on the counter for her parents to spot. More than anything, she wanted to go someplace where she could be challenged, where people would appreciate her intelligence, and, where she would perhaps finally meet other people, besides her brother, who she could really connect with.

"Will you write to me?" Simon asked River as he held onto her.

"Of course, if I have the time. Look at it." River gestured toward the building behind her brother. He turned towards it. "With an edifice that large the facilities must be..." She lost the rest of her words as she mused about the school.

Simon gazed up at The Academy. It _was_ grand. Completely white, with the Alliance insignia in gold on the faГade. Domes caped the roof tops and reflected the sunlight across the green lawn. The lawn stretched out over distant hills and a few trees. And, there were no other buildings in sight.

"It's very isolated."

"Most of The Academy is underground. Like an iceberg," River explained.

Simon still felt the campus appeared eerie. _If you could call it a campus_, thought Simon. The white building was too perfect, too artificial against the empty blue sky and the perfectly trimmed grass. "Do you need help carrying your bags in?"

River gave him a look. She had one large duffel slung over her shoulder. The other she was holding a few inches above the ground; however, she didn't seem strained at all by the weight. "I'll be fine, Simon. I will begin my first letter to you once I am settled in. Now, I must go or I will be late for orientation."

As her brother scanned the parking lot, he realized that there weren't any other families heading to The Academy. In fact, he could not see another single person in the area. "Are you sure you have the right time? There's no one else here."

"Yes. They're probably all inside by now. We _are_ running a bit late."

Simon gave her one last hug, and River leaned onto him as he did so. "Good-bye, mei-mei."

--

"And do you like school?" The interviewer asked.

River had checked in with the woman at the front desk, after frantically apologizing for her tardiness. As two Alliance guards took her bags away, the receptionist had grinned at River. "The entrance interview is just routine. They just want to see where you are at before they fit you in to the curriculum." The two guards then led River into an empty room. It looked like an interrogation room for criminals, not a friendly office for incoming students. There were two chairs, and a small table. One of the walls even included a one-way window. The interviewer was waiting for her when she entered.

"I do," she replied. "It's..." River paused. Even if their exchange felt more like an interrogation than an academic interview, she supposed she ought to be honest about how easy most of the courses were at her school, so she would be put into appropriately leveled classes. "...sometimes things move a little slowly for me."

The interviewer flipped through a folder containing her transcripts, and made some notes in a notebook. "I imagine they do. What's your favorite subject?"

"I'm finding physics a challenge."

"You're in the graduate program already," he stated.

"They call me 'little mouse,'" she responded with a slight laugh. He didn't laugh with her.

"Do you think they're jealous because you're so young?"

River hesitated for a second. It was a strange question to ask during this kind of interview, but she still answered. "Volgar is a little. He plans to become very important."

"Did he tell you that he was jealous?"

"Oh. No. I just..."

"You feel it." He wrote down another note.

"People tell you things all the time without talking," she explained. "By the way they move, or the way they_ aren't_ talking."

"You're very intuitive."

It was not the first time someone had told her that. But, this man seemed to hint that she possessed more than mere insight in people's motives. "Simon says I was born with a third eye," she said, laughing, trying to get the edge off. The thought of her brother gave her comfort. "He hates it when I can tell which girls he likes."

"Your brother. He's a doctor, right?"

"He's a trauma surgeon in Capital City."

"Quite a family," the interviewer said to himself as he wrote in his notebook.

"Simon's a genius. I could never do what he does."

The interviewer put down his pen, and folded his hands on the tabletop. "I think you could do whatever you put your mind to. That's what the Alliance needs. That's what this institution is all about--your mind; letting it do everything it could. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?"

River watched the man across from her. He had a slight smile on his lips, and a almost hungry glare in his eyes. She turned away from his gaze, the one lamp in the room was so bright that she couldn't see most of his countenance. _He's not hungry_, she convinced herself, _he's just...excited, as I am, to have a new pupil_. River met the man's face again, grinning. "Would I still be allowed to dance?"

--

The two guards who took River's bags led her down numerous flights of stairs after the interview. As they went deeper and deeper underground, there were less and less windows. The lights became brighter, but the hallways still seemed darker. Despite the cleanly painted walls and wide corridors, the air was still thick and constraining. _A hospital_, thought River, uneasily, _It has to be some kind of one_. She always felt queasy when she entered a hospital, which was one of the reasons she had not been able to follow Simon into the medical profession. She scanned her surroundings underneath the fluorescent lights. She noticed that the doctors, the guards, and even the janitor mopping the floor wore white masks that covered their nose and mouths.

No one looked at her. No one even acknowledged her presence. She would have felt like a ghost if not for the guards' firm grips on her upper arms.

_Just like an iceberg._


	2. II: Sunset

II. Session 22: _Sunset_.

The sidelights shone an amber light onto the dancers, outlining their long, flexible bodies as they twirled in unison to the music. As the tempo increased, so did he dancers' speed, their silky, purple skirts flaring about them. The lead dancer came forward. Her curly brown hair was loose and flowing behind her as she spun faster than her accomplices. The audience clapped and whistled. The girl smiled, although she could not see the peoples' faces due to the glaring lights.

In a final flourish, the dancers reached one arm gracefully up to the ceiling. For a second, their bodies seemed to propel upward and they were about to lift off the stage floor. Then, they collapsed, as a block of dry sand falls onto itself: their foreheads touched he cold black floor, as they crouched down. The lead dancer let out a silent breath and then heard thunderous applause. She slowly stood up and bowed as a few camera flashes dotted the audience.

Then, the flashes became more numerous and more frequent. The dancer's smile faded as she realized that she was now alone on stage. Odd. She hadn't seen her friends leave the stage. They were supposed to stay out until the curtain was drawn. Something flew past her ear. Then another. The people in the audience were not holding cameras any longer, they were holding weapons.

She heard a hazy, yet commanding, voice near her ear. Or, was it a voice? It was an order. _A trigger_: "Dodge them." She had no choice either way; the bullets were everywhere now.

River Tam looked around her. This wasn't a stage. It was one of The Academy's "Movement Training" rooms. Continuing to follow the choreography of a morbid dance, she darted past the bullets.

"Very good."

River heard the comment, spoken from the other side of the barrier on one side of the room, where the gunners were placed. She recognized the voice. It belonged to one of her professors at the university. Like all the rest, excluding Dr. Methias, she neither knew the teacher's name nor face. And, as with her other lessons, she did not want to learn what she was being taught; however, if she struggled, they would sever into her brain once again, to tear out her defiance. _At least this time I'm not hurting anyone_, she thought. River let her conscious self step back once more as she watched the "doctors" program her body into the perfect weapon.

"Proceed to Level Six." The bullets whizzed by, this time with more speed and accuracy. River, or the empty River, continued her dance steps with more urgency. It was her first time on Level Six, so her body was not accustomed to the pace yet. As she executed another pirouette, she landed on her foot the wrong way. She yelped as she stumbled forward. A bullet grazed her thigh, and another tore the side of her forearm. The pain forced her conscious self back into her body as she collapsed onto the floor.

"That's enough," said her movement trainer. River desperately clutched her arm, but the blood continued to leak onto the floor, staining her green pants and smock. It oozed thick and red and glistened under the bright lights. She began to feel nauseous. "Take her to the infirmary. There is another set of incisions to be done this evening. He wants her repaired by then."

_Repaired?_ She thought, _Am I some sort of machine now? No! _River began to breathe heavily, as if she were running out of air. She tried to kick and push the guards' hands away from her, but there was blood everywhere, and she slipped. Then, she receded to the wall as she sank to the floor, her clothes and hair drenched in her own sweat and blood. Her head was too light and the rest of her body was too heavy. The lights were no longer amber, as they were in her reverie, but white. They grew brighter, into phosphorescent blobs that spread across her vision.

"Infirmary. Now. She's losing a lot of blood. Let's move!"

She floated towards the ceiling, towards the lights, which had now all fused together. _It's the sun. Am I home?_

_-- _

River remembered the high noon sun back home, and the wide lawn of the Tam estate. She remembered her room, and more than anything she wished that she could return there. She remembered her bright red sari comforter, her polished mahogany bureau, and her vibrant drawings which she had taped onto the walls. She spent hours carefully peeling off the depictions and placing them into a folder, so that she could again look at them on her dorm room's wall whenever she felt nostalgic. But, the two guards who took her packed bags never brought them to her room.

Her room at The Academy resembled an asylum cell. There was a padded exam table and a side door to a small room with a toilet. She didn't even have her clothes. There was only a cream robe suited for a kind of medical patient waiting for her on her "bed" when she returned from the infirmary. Since it was the cream attire, she knew that she was either due for another physical check-up or interview.

She didn't know exactly how much time she had spent at The Academy. At least a month or two--maybe even more. She was never let outside. The only time she ever saw the sky was when she was led up the flights of stairs to see the Interrogator, who she met every other day. "To keep a data log of her progress," he explained.

_--- _

"...but you understand why these treatments are important?" the interviewer asked River.

"I don't think..." She began, and then she paused in order to regain composure. "I'm sorry." She would make them let them go, with her reason. All she had to do was word her request correctly, and they would see. It was just like talking her way out of trouble with her parents. "I think there's been...an error. I don't think..." _No, that's not the right way to phrase it._ However, River found that the more she tried to articulate her request, the more difficult it was to speak cohesively. The fact that she rarely spoke outside these interviews, besides screaming, did not help."I think I may not be the right subject for these...for this program."

"It's perfectly natural to feel nervous--"

"I just--If it were possible to be transferred, I would make a...I would like to request a transfer."

"You want to be back in Jan Ed?" asked the interviewer with a smirk, as he mentioned her old university.

"Please," she whispered.

"You told us that was no good for you--it was too slow; that's why you're here."

"Please," River implored again. "It...hurts."

"Well, I can help you with that. You know how proud Dr. Methias is of how you're progressing--"

"I'm not progressing!" River shouted at the man. Then, she felt movement behind the one-way window behind the interviewer. She could swear she heard voices. All at once images began to flash across her mind, as if she were flipping quickly through pictures in a book. River fell back into her seat, strands of her wavy, brown hair obscuring her face from the Interrogator. _What is this? _she thought. She began to pant as someone else's memories rushed into her mind:

_Corpses. Millions of them. On the memorial's steps. On a park bench. In a bedroom. The lips of on the faces had long receded from their teeth. Their skin had turned a tint of yellow or green. The eyes were rolled inward. None of them were injured. A woman's shaking voice reported: "...and then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's thirty million people here, and they all just let themselves die." _**_Miranda._**

The interviewer saw the subjects eyes glaze over as she unconsciously tilted her head to the side, as if listening to something. He quickly flipped to a new page in his notebook. These were the symptoms the doctors had told him about, when she somehow became able to reach into peoples' minds. He had to record it.

The Parliament officials watched the subject from the other side of the window, unknown to the interviewer. She stared at the officials beyond the glass, as if she could actually see them, but her eyes were glossed over.

"_'It's the Pax.'_" the girl stated quietly. The interviewer took her statement as a result of her psychotic episode, but one of the Parliament members shifted uncomfortably as he continued to witness River Tam.

"Tell me what you see," the interrogator demanded

River turned towards him. "You lost the first one. You cut too deep. He died on the table. One of your attendants cried and you comforted her: 'We're doing such good work.'" Then she began to shiver, as, slowly, she retreated from her daze.

"Do you understand that that is true? The work we do here is very important, and you're a part of that."

As River felt her conscious self return to her body, she realized that they wouldn't let her out. She couldn't escape. No one would come for her. Not her parents, but...Simon. _Simon_. "I would like to see my brother," she said.

"Well, you can write to him anytime you'd like--"

"I need to--to.. .please...to see my brother."

"Well, I'm sure he's very busy."

She had no choice but to agree. There was no way Simon would know what is really happening at the Academy anyway. They scanned all her letters before she sends them. _I'm trapped._ She nods. "Yes. I'm sure." No one will come to take me home. The sun has set forever.

--

So, Simon Tam suddenly stopped receiving letters from his little sister.


	3. III: Rubber Band

III. Session 165: _Rubber Band_

River Tam paced the interrogation room, fuming and frustrated. She had long ago accepted the fact that there was no way she could escape from the Academy on her own. But, if they thought she would push over and let them probe and ravage her mind willingly...

"...because _I _have a system. You make an assumption because you have a system...symptomatic...it's chronic! You think that it's benign--that it has to be cut out!" Her words were blending and splitting, but they had made sense in her mind before she said them out loud. She was too angry to care either way. The man sat across the table from her, remaining silent, his hand casually grasping his pen. He didn't even bother to write any of her complaints down on his _stupid_ notepad. When she was agitated with her parents, they carried the same demeanor as he did. Even if she could barely make out his face, she could...somehow..._sense _it: "Subject's parnoia is highly likely to be the result of fragmentation of her neural stripping." It angered her even more that he didn't even bother to figure out what she was trying to tell him.

She continued, explaining her behavior earlier this afternoon. "This system is simple: blanket pulled off the sheet, sheet gets pulled off the mattress...the mattress can't be trusted. It has to be gutted. I lived under twenty unfounded...and you wonder why I'm not sleeping?!"

--

It was a few weeks after Combat Training with Subject 602. He was forty-five, bald except for the few black patches of hair behind his ears, and towered over her by at least a couple heads. His eyes and skin were dark brown, clearly contrasting with the white in his eyes. He was empty and broke--far past her current state. He immediately stepped into the preparatory position, ready for them to set off the trigger to set them tearing each other to shreds with their bare fists and legs. River leaned against the wall opposite from him. She twitched as his thoughts flew into her mind and blinked as each memory materialized as one of her own.

She saw rolling hills of sand. There was an oasis with a large clay complex of buildings near the clear blue water. He was a teacher of the stars, inspired by ancient astronomical instruments he stumbled upon as a boy. He was in the ruins for the second time when the sand storm hit. His whole village, including his wife and boy, was buried, choking on sand. The only bit left was the faint outline of the top of the high tower which once supported his immense telescope. He traveled through the desert. He thought he would die, and then he was picked up. An Alliance ship.

"The great wind was unnatural," she told him. Jordan looked up at her for the first time, understanding in his face.

The ship's turbulence had set off the sand storm. _They staged it. Those bastards. They staged it_, River's fighting partner seethed.

"_They staged it. Those bastards. They staged it. Made me think they were there to save me_," the girl echoed unconsciously.

The man across from her had long lost his words, but she could see his bewilderment.

River felt Jordan's mind dissipate from her as Doctor Methias entered the room. He was a proud, middle-aged man, and apparently he wished to witness one of his pupil's development _especially since this particular one is progressing much quicker than we had ever hoped. Our highest achievement to date. _River tried to mold with the wall behind her once again. This "professor" was most ravenous for her and her abilities, and most willing to try the most painful approaches when they just had to be done...for science, for the Alliance, for his own personal gain. Oh, how his colleagues would idolize him after he finished his work with Subject River Tam.

"Trigger her," Dr. Methias ordered.

It wasn't so much a verbal command as it was a subconscious combination of sounds, lights, sensations, thoughts. River again found herself outside her own body, watching helplessly as she fought her partner. At first, he managed to block her attacks. He thought he had her when he punched her in the abdomen, successfully knocking the air out of her. But, by then, the lithe girl had been completely exposed to his mind, personality, and martial tactics. He attempted to to flip her onto her back as they converged once again, but River caught his arm while applying a harsh pressure to a major blood vessel in his wrist. He wriggled free from her grip, leaving his back exposed. _Guard's down_, the weapon thought ruthlessly. The weapon-River drove her heel down on his spine in his lower back. Subject 602 screamed, and turned around, attempting to knock his enemy off of her feet with a kick. River dodged it expertly, bent to his level, and kneed him in the nose in one fluid motion. There was a loud crack that seemed to echo in the stale room.

River, standing outside her body, couldn't bear it much longer. As her body began a roundhouse kick to the back of his head, she squirmed, pushed, and waded her way back into her consciousness. _Stop! Stop it! You'll kill him! STOP! _But, her body continued to beat the man down, although River's limbs were shaking, caught between behavioral conditioning and her own commands. Jordan finally slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. His shoulder was dislocated and his face was barely recognizable, but he was still breathing. The girl began to commit a blow to end him with her pale, blood-stained knuckles.

Then, River finally managed to return to her body. She grasped her face with her hands and fell to the floor. "Stop...stop...stop..." She repeated to herself as she began to sob.

Jordan saw the girl through the eye that was still working. Now so frail and ashen, her long hair hanging in thick, loose strands around her face. Suddenly, she looked up at him, her eyes were wide and white as if she knew what Dr. Methias would say next.

"Trigger her again."

He felt the familiar sensation, but his body was too beat up to respond. The girl bent down, shaking, fighting it. Jordan was touched, although she ought not to do it. He killed many men and women in these sessions. Even children. And now it was his turn to die. And, honestly, he couldn't be more relieved to get out of this hell.

"It's okay," he choked out. His voice was rugged from not being used for years. But, as soon as he said it, she stopped convulsing. She stood up, still vibrating, but obviously under the doctors' leash once again. She looked at him. Her pupils were dilated. She strode up to him and brought back her arm. He closed his eyes. _I wonder if I'm the first one she's killed_, he thought. He felt tears. They stung his cheeks. "River..." he whispered. She let loose her fist, killing him instantly.

--

Dr. Methias decided that River Tam's movements were still too slow after that fight. Her Physical Trainer suggested recalibrating her spine some way in order for the neurons from her brain to send messages to the rest of her body more quickly. Unfortunately, they needed her to be conscious while the operation took place to make sure the process ran smooth. They didn't bother doping her up. She hung, pulled tight against a rim of steel as they implanted needle after painful needle into her back. Whenever she fainted, they brought her back. "Rewiring" her neuron cords was the most painful experience she had had up to that point. For weeks, she couldn't sit, or brace her back against anything. Whenever she felt anything touch her back, the memory of the painful operation came back in a rush.

One night, she shifted on her bed pallet and accidentally applied pressure to a handful of those points in her back where the doctors had inserted their needles. She..._lost_ it. Her memories of the operation revisited her with more color than before. She was too afraid of the needles. She had to make sure there weren't any in her bed. She checked the bedding, but she couldn't get inside the mattress. So, she ripped it to shreds. She had to make sure.

"...Are you worried that I cut up my mattress for no reason, or that I had a perfectly good reason that you cannot see?" Jordan was wrong. He wasn't the first person she killed. _Nor will he be my last_, she thought ruefully. She hadn't had any form of comforting human contact since her brother's departing hug in the parking lot. _I should have held onto him longer._ "...can't...see...anyone," she spoke quietly. "Even the orderlies wear masks."

"Why did you cut up your mattress?" Why did he ask? He knew about the operation. He was the one in charge of keeping a _data log_ on the subject. _Confusion. Worry._ She felt it in him.

"I was trying to protect my spine," she explained, harshly, bracing the desk with the palms of her hands. The metal felt freezing against her hands, which were boiling from her anger.

"Are you worried you might be injured? Your Movement Trainer has given you excellent--"

"No one will give me a mission." She heard his concerns. He was beginning to worry that she would not be capable to complete her future assignments, if her instability was really so terrific.

"A mission?"

She snapped back to her own mind. _A rubber band. I'm stretched then released then stretched then released. When was the last time I could keep my thoughts straight? _She began her mattress ravaging clarification once again: "I have a reason. I'm...reasonable...I have a reason. My movements haven't been dictated yet, but I am _not_ here for _nothing_!" She felt it again, the slow shift into a different topic. She had been speaking of how the doctors should listen to her, to _River_, before they maintain their movement training. The training reminded her of Jordan. He was the first fighting partner she had unconsciously probed...actually "met" before she killed. She began to feel something like small ants crawl up her back. _I'm stretching again_, she thought. "I...am a..." she faltered. "...stiff...sty..spine...there's something wrong...with the body politic."

In an instant, the tiny ants became three inch needles, sinking into her back once again. She screamed and doubled over onto the table. "They're sticking in me! It's in the mattress and it's killing inside me! You cut it out! YOU CUT IT OUT! YOU CUT IT OUT! YOU CUT IT OUT!"

As she continued her screams, the interrogated stood by complacently. And scribbled his second note during the session with his brand new pen.


	4. IV: The Gun

IV. Session 416: _The Gun_

She sat on top of the padded exam table--her bed, so called. There was a moldy, red blanket, but no sheets or pillows save a thin piece of paper. It was nearly impossible to find a comfortable sleep position.

Her mind could no longer withstand the twittering of all the alien minds around her. Whispers of the stretching Core estates belonging to the esteemed doctors' families, and their arrogance which blinded them from how sick their methods of extracting data from human brains were. Sometimes she rode along with people as they returned home in their daydreams. It comforted her, since she was finding it harder and harder to produce her own childhood memories.

Even more distressing, the images of decaying bodies and the woman--the poor woman--who was ravaged in front of her eyes painted bolder strokes across her mind's eye as the days passed. When they forced her to sleep, the visions were the worst. She was stuck in a permanent stasis until she was triggered awake. Like all those citizens from that world who just stopped everything and died. In all her dreams, there was a savage creature, one human, who would appear and attack her. Or, she would watch as she herself become sallow and corpse-like. She didn't know why it haunted her. Perhaps it was because that woman in the projection wanted the rest of the universe to know how the government experimented on an entire planet population, how it all went wrong, and how they tried to cover it up--just like the doctors at The Academy. Now all those children who died buried underneath their stuffed animals or beneath the playground jungle gym, all the employees who rested their heads on their keyboards, all the people who belonged to other planets who were raped and butchered by those savages--reavers--they haunted her like ghosts. Whispering in her ear. Every day they became louder.

Sometimes it got out of control. They were forced to tie her down, which left red sores on her wrists and ankles. They would threaten to put her to sleep if she didn't calm down, and that would only incite her to rebel more. There was always contrast, where she would be underneath the bright fluorescent hall lights or exam lamps, and then, suddenly, back in her dark room or unconscious on the cold, tiled floor, blood slowly oozing from her nose--a gift from one of her peers during Movement Training, and later from a metal bullet during Weapon Training.

The guns frightened her the most. When she killed a man or women with her own hands and body, true, she could feel the bones crack and the life evaporate from the body. However, with weapons, there was no intimacy. It made her feel like a weapon herself--or a target. Even less human than the doctors deemed her to be. Nobody understood her mumblings about the unfortunate planet's fate, which she had accidentally abstracted from the Parliament figure behind the one-way window that day. Not even the interrogator, which surprised her, because, of everyone at the Academy, she thought that he was the one person who comprehended her the best. He saw her from start to finish, and listened to her complaints and requests.

But, River knew Dr. Methias suspected that his prime subject knew about the Parliamentary secret.

He was standing over her, perusing a 3-D image of her brain that was hovering above her head. The girl was tied down more securely than usual. In addition to the straps to her four limbs, there was a metal strap around her neck and waist. She was also sedated, although the drugs did little to quiet her mind.

Dr. Methias finally left the image, and gazed at his subject while he braced his arms against the table where she lay. "I have come to understand that you have accessed some information."

River didn't reply.

"Answer me."

"Subject has learned of the planetary experiment code name--"

"Enough," he interrupted. River turned towards him, her eyes were glazed over. "I do not wish to know the details, but if Mr. Moore is also aware of the specifics, I would like you tell me so now."

"Subject does not know a Mr. Moore."

"He is the person who keeps your data logs."

River paused. It was odd that despite her ever-growing telepathic senses, she was not able to extract the interrogator's name. However, she felt some attachment to the man. She told him everything--he was the closest thing she had to a confidant at this point in her life.

"Answer me now, subject."

The girl swallowed nervously and held her tongue.

She was alone in the room with Dr. Methias, the most dangerous person for her to be with in The Academy. He knew every command to trigger her into her different states. He could essentially force her to do anything. The other doctors had left long ago.

Dr. Methias did just that. River couldn't hear the odd combination of words, but the subliminal command behind them: _Obey_.

Again, she felt her conscious self slipping out of her body, as it responded, seemingly on its own: "Mr. Moore has heard more than any other personal at this institution. He has long ago had enough information to put together the Parliaments secret failure, but he has not done so yet to my knowledge."

The doctor kicked River's exam table in frustration. "Damn it," he hissed under his breath. She heard his thoughts, they were so loud that her body began to convulse from his stress and anger. Then he looked at River. Her eyes widened even though her conscious self was still far from home. "I want you to do something for me..." Dr. Methias began.

---

"You're very quiet today. How did your session with Dr. Methias go?"

_The target_. She lifted the safety switch. "He gave me a mission," River replied.

"Really?" Mr. Moore sounded surprised. "Did he tell you your mission out loud, or did you just hear it?"

As she aligns her shot, a voice tears her away. _River...River..._ Her brother is calling to her in her sleep. Sometimes he visits her dreams, and then the next night he isn't there. River searches her memories, but she cannot remember anything of him except his last warm embrace in the parking lot...and even that was beginning to fade away. "He plays hide and seek with me..."

"Doctor Methias?"

"My brother is a doctor. He thinks he can find me, but...I am deep down, and I do not make...a sound." River felt herself slowly retreat to the back of her mind as she remembered the doctor's command to her. Mr. Moore's next question reminded her of it. She did not question how she predicted his next question. She just raised her gun again._ I am his weapon._

"River, what mission did the doctor give you?"

"I can't tell you."

"You can tell me anything. You know that," Mr. Moore persisted. River's eyes scanned the room. There were no weapons.

"Can't..." She began, and then she noticed the interrogators pen. _Improvise_. "...tell," she finished. River held out her hand. "I'll have to write it down."

The interrogator looked at her quizzically, and then slowly passed the girl his pen. For a second, River turned the utensil around in her fingers, studying it. _Take the shot_. Then, almost wraith-like, she flew around the corner of the table and planted the pen into Mr. Moore's throat.

The attack was not expected by her interviewer at all. At first, he looked at her, disbelieving, as her fist still grasped the writing instrument. His body began to convulse. River released her grip on the pen and stalked around him, her bare feet lightly padding the floor. Mr. Moore tried to speak, but his words only came out in a choking splutter. He breathed heavily as he pulls his pen out from his neck and drops it on the table. Then, he tumbles off his chair, landing with a harsh thud on the floor.

Behind the one-way glass, the guard watches astounded. After he hears the thud through the thick glass, he manages to pick up the phone to headquarters. As he dials the number, the subject jumps out of the shadows and braces herself against the window. Her dark hair was wild and her pupils were wide, like an animal. Her hands smeared Mr. Moore's blood on the screen before him, as she stared directly into his eyes. The guard's hart skipped a beat and he almost dropped the phone.

"I can see you," she whispered to him.


	5. V: Simon

V. Simon

River sat cross-legged style at a lower desk in an outdoor classroom situated in the middle of a colorful park. The sun shone through the canopy's posts, and playfully tickled her back. She welcomed the sensation, as she listened to her teacher's lecture--a careful constructed script created by the Alliance in order to cover up their civilization's mistakes. She looked down at her desk, pretending to listen to her instructor's words as she quietly relished the fresh air.

Only her classmates' loud chattering managed to pull her out of her reverie.

"I hear they're cannibals," Sari breathed as if she were repeating yet another of her rumors.

"That's only Reavers," Joel replied.

"Reavers aren't real!"

"Full well, they are!" At this point, the rest of the class erupted in chatter. And, although they were all outside, River felt stifled up by their whispers--as if they were all narrating a ghost story around a little dark room around a violent fire. _But, in the end, it was the fire that held the truth_, she thought. It absorbs all the stories, all the memories, all the experiences, and it alone can know the awful truth, which in itself is more frightening than the original tale.

"I hear they attack settlers from space," Joel continued, almost excitedly, "and kill them, and wear their skins, and rape them for hours and hours--"

The instructor raised her hand firmly, and spoke an order--_a trigger_--for the students to stop their chatter. They ceased immediately. "It's true there are dangers on the outer planets. So with so many social and medical advancements we can bring to the Independents, why would they fight so hard against us?"

_Another lie._ Another ghost story. River had to say something. "We meddle."

"River?"

"People don't like to be meddled with," River stated a little more strongly, "We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome"

She was bouncing her pen more quickly against her desk now. That was when she noticed that it was Mr. Moore's pen--Mr Moore's death. _So, this is another dream._ The teacher's soft hands covered hers and removed the utensil from River. Her teacher's hands were soft and dainty, like her mother's. And, with a sort of patronizing and pitying look, the instructor chided, "River, we're not telling people what to think. We're just trying to show them how."

And, with the same calm look, she impaled River's forehead with the pen.

River felt a searing pain in her brow as the scene, even the warm sunlight, disappeared from her vision.

---

"River..."

She heard her brother's voice. The pain in her head was still there...was it really a dream?

"...it's Simon."

_Simon_. Loving hands caressed her face, and carefully removed the pen...or was it a needle?...embedded in her head. Then his fingers carefully brushed the small gush of blood away.

"Please..." he begged, "...it's your brother."

_My brother_. Her vision cleared, and he was there, removing an Alliance uniform to reveal doctor's attire. Dr. Methias and the other doctors were on the floor, knocked out cold. Simon seemed so out of place in this facility. Was this just another dream? The only way she would find out would be to play along with it.

She slid off the operating chair, and walked up to her brother.

"Simon." He turned around, midway through pulling off his uniform, as he inhaled a breath. _He always did scare easily,_ she thought. _Scared..._ He saw the security guards watching the cameras, fear gripping them. Fear of what would happen to them if the facility's star pupil escaped during their watch. "They know you've come."

Quickly, his hand resting at the small of her back, Simon led his sister out of the operation room and down another fluorescent hallway. "We can't make it to the surface from inside," he breathed to her. They heard footsteps from around the corner. He looked at her, and said "Find out."

River climbed the walls, and braced her back against the ceiling and her two feet against the parallel walls, one hand tightly grasping an emergency fire sprinkler. As she watched the doctor pass beneath her, she opened her mind to him--her eyes flickering as she shifted through his mind to find the correct route to the drop off shoot. It was a large shaft that ran horizontally past all the floors in the facility. It was used to transport large machinery between floors.

When she clambered back down, Simon led her to the shoot, quietly explaining the escape plan to her. Apparently, a few accomplices, who he paid generously, would bring an aircraft to the shaft and lower a platform for Simon and River. Then, they would fly out of there. _Free._

The security caught up to them by the time they reached the shaft doors. Simon locked them after his sister and he carefully stepped onto the floor's ledge to the shaft. As River looked down a strong gust of wind rushed up the shaft, pushing her wavy hair into her face. The sunlight from the top of the shaft disappeared as it dropped deeper to the lower floors of the Academy. She shivered. The high level training rooms were located on the basement floors. She heard The Academy's guards attempting to break through the shaft doors. _Scared._

Then the shoot grew suddenly dark. River looked up to see a spacecraft eclipsing the opening of the shaft, as the ship lowered a small platform to Simon and River. Crouched low, River hung onto one of the ropes attached to the platform as it was raised up. She watched each floor of the Academy pass by her in a blur: the Medical facilities, the floor in which Mr. Moore held her interrogations, the Dormitory, the glittering entrance hall, where she had so naively apologized to the receptionist for being late for "orientation."

Then, she was above the pearl white building. Sunlight bounced off of the golden domes that capped the wings of the facility and stung her eyes. She saw the sky, and it was clear. She felt the loud wind immediately dry her tears to her cheeks, and heard the wind boom in her ears. She smelt the crisp air mixed with the faint scent of her brother's cologne. She looked at him, and he rested his hand on her head with a smile.

The sun. The air. Her brother. _This is real_, she realized.


End file.
